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Monday, March 18, 2013

How Do we Know God is not Evil?

I've seen atheists ask this in various forms. The most recent I've seen
is "prove God isn't evil." I answered that with three arguemnts only to
find the atheists pulling the old relativism thing. How do we know good
and evil even exist at all they said? Well, first of all, in answering
the question about "prove god is not evil," the challenge was in
reference to Christian ideas. To even ask the question assumes a
Christian framework. You can't say on the one hand "God might really be
evil," then say "but there's no such thing as evil." One get's the feeling of
being set up for a cheap trick. Like we say "ok so God is evil in the
sense that there is no such thing as evil. so what?" they say "O you
admitted it, God is evil you said it ok that's the end of Christianity!"
Those are two completely different questions to answer the one you must
bracket the other. first I will present my arguments to prove that God
is not evil, and to do that assume the Christian framework for good and
evil. Then I will deal with the relativistic stuff (that there is no
good or evil). ,,,,I am assuming there is such a thing as good and we
all have a general idea of what that is. Now I also noted that many
atheist in the discussion I allude to above (where the challenge was
made "prove God is not evil") were assuming a contradiction in the Bible
where on the one hand God says "love your neighbor" and on the other
hand he says "slaughter the Amelekites kids." So there's the problem of a
contradiction between the values God expresses and the behavior God
exhibits. Thus we assume the values expressed are true values of good,
and that is a meaningful term, but the question is does God seem to
betray the very values that he instigates. Before giving three
positive reasons to think God can't be evil, (that is a logical
impossibility) we have to deal with the seeming contradiction in the
Bible.....The Bible seems to paint a picture, at least in the OT, that God is wiping out other groups of people and commanding he slaughter of their infants and so on. That is pretty strong reason to suggest that God might be seen as evil. He's doing things that the Bible tells us are evil. Then there is strong evidence that the Amalekite passage is added in latter. The
text of 1 Samuel is one of the most heavily redacted in the Bible. As
we will see, it's very presence in the canon has been brought into
question, but the version we have is probably a corrupted second rate
copy, and the LXX is closer, and Q4Sama at Qumran closer still, to the
actual original.

"For
the past two centuries textual critics have recognized that the
Masoretic Text (MT) of 1&2 Samuel has much textual corruption. The
Samuel MT is shorter than the LXX and 4QSama. The Samuel MT has improper
word division, metathesis, and other orthographic problems. Certain
phrases and clauses go against the Hebrew grammar rules. Parallel
passages vary from each other" (See Charlesworth, 2000, pp.227-8).

Redaction of Infant Slaughtering Passage

Notes in the New Oxford Annotated Bible on 1 Sam 15:1-35

"Another
story of Saul's rejection: The late source. Compare this section with
13:7-15, Samuel, not Saul is the leading figure once more."

This
is the very passage in which Samuel relays God's command to wipe out
the infants. So even though I still need to find more specific evidence
for that very passage, there is a good chance of proving redaction.
While its true that I can't produce an actual MS showing no infant
slaughter command, the passage in which that command is given has been
redacted. The odds are very high that this command was not part of the
original passage, or we can regard it as such. We know that
slaughtering infants in evil, and we have no obligation to accept a
command as divine that we know to be totally at odds with God's law and
God's moral code.

All the other verses must be dealt with in
similar fashion, one by one, and an overview entailing a theory of
inspiration adopted so that one knows how to approach scripture. For an
example on this one might consult my page on the nature of Biblical revelation as an example.

Now I present the three arguments that prove God is not evil:

I. Being is good.

Being
is not evil. We are all part of being, we all engage in the act of
being. We know from our existence that existing is good and it's not
evil. There's no reason to think it is. It's hard for a lot of people to
get thier minds around the idea of God as being itself. I've certainly
spent a lot of time blogging about the concept. I wont go into it here.
It can be found on Doxa in several pages. I'm also just finishing my second book which is on the subject. Wait a couple of years and it will be out.

syllogism:*God is being itself

being is good.

therefore God must be good.

One
objection to this is that some atheists tried to evoke the notion that
life is not good. One cna mean this either in terms of "my individual
life sux," or in terms of amorality or some form of relativism. That
would be cheating the issues here becuase I explain above the original
challenge assumes Christian categories of good and evil. Moreover, one
can condemn the concept of life itself by one's own experiences. I can
have rotten life (to some extent that's what I make it) that doesn't
mean all life is rotten. There is a goodness about life itself. Here I
take life as a pragmatic form of existence. Existence in and of itself
is "good," if not in a moral sense (which is one confusion of the
argument--the mixing of senses between moral and pragmatic) at least
just in the sense of the (apparent) goodness of open ended possibility.

II. Love can't be evil.

This
is one of those mysterious points that of which atheists are most
incredulous. Almost every time they will say "you are logic is so bad"
on this point. When pressed they never say why. they can't give me a
rule of logic that's violated, nine times out of ten it's a matter of
rejecting the concept of a priori. That unusually happens becuase they have self esteem problems, as atheists are known to have.

The
nature of love makes it the very definition of Good. What is the
nature of the good, it's what love is, being kind, being gentile, caring
about others, giving to others, living for others. How do we know
this? First we have to realize we are not talking about butterflies in
the stomach. Many atheists try to lose the concept of love in the
emotions that go with it, which they sweep away as the side effect of
brain chemistry. The kind of love experienced in romance, puppy
love,infatuation, lust, sexual attraction and the like is what is meant
here by "love." Here I speak of agape. This
is "God's love" sometimes translated "charity." Although that is not a
good translation. Paul Tillich defines it as "the will t the good of the
other." I think that is a most apt decryption. The Greek does imply the willingness to assign to others the human dignity due them.

It
is more or less an axiomatic tenet that love is the background of the
moral universe (consult Saint Augustine, and Joseph Fletcher). I am not
sure it can be proved, thus making it "axiomatic." Like most axioms
trying to deny it would be absurd. This is certainly true in terms of
Christian theology.

1 John 4:

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17
This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have
confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because
fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in
love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20
Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.
For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have
seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

,,,,Don't
even think about trying to argue that "you are trying to prove the
Bible by the Bible." I am not trying to prove the bible I'm demonstrating
the Christian categories which the original challenge assumes (so I
have to go by the to answer the challenge). This is exactly what
atheists would do to try and prove than an idea was Christian. If we are
considering Christian ethics then we must consider that love is the
background of the moral universe. Love is the basis of God's character. That
either the issue becomes redundant if we consider the relativist
position (which we will soon enough) or it rebounds onto the Christian
categories and becomes a matter of what we think about the Bible. With a
fundamentalist view of inerrancy it's hard to see how there is not a
contradiction in the categories, what God says and what God does.
Yet of course that is not the only Christian answer; there are several
other views that take up different approaches to the bible that serve as
alternatives.syllogism:

Love is not evil

God's nature is love and God is the original source of love

therefore God is not evil.

Thus,
from the perspective of the Christian categories each of the above
arguemnts individually prove that God is not evil and cannot be
construed as evil.

III. Evil can't be the first thing.

Evil
is the absence of the good. That means there has to be a good
preceding evil to be departed from to create an absence. evil is
rebellion against good. Evil is rejecting the good. all of this implies
good is first.God is eternal so God has to be first. A lot of people
reject the categories of good and evil becasue they don't like the way
they are made. One of the major issues in atheism (even though many
atheists don't realize it--a psychological problem) is self rejection
leads to rejection of the idea that a loving God would make me the way I
am. I was an atheist I know what it is to think that way. The old
cliche "God is not finished with me yet" has it's uses and this is one
of them.If you don't like the way God made you it's only becuase he's
not finished yet. If you rebel against God you are not letting him
finish you.

That means there has to be a good preceding evil to be departed from to create an absence.

Actual Atheist Objection:

"That doesn't follow. A hole is an absence of earth, the
existence of a hole doesn't imply there was earth. Counter example to
your premise." I this I argued "are you kidding? Isn't a hole defined by
what's around it? That's like saying "I don't believe donuts exist,
only the holes exist." A hole with nothing around it is nothing.

syllogism:

evil is falling away from, therefore, good is prior to evil

God is eternal and thus is prior to all things

therefore, God can't be evil.

Now
we come to the issue of relativism. For those who do not hold to the
Christian categories of good and evil but try to define them either by
sweeping them away, or by using the terms relative to other standards,
how does one come to ascertain the truth content of the Christian
categories? The only way one can really do this is empirically. Of
course this assumes there's a god. Though many atheists will try not
allow such an assumption, it's pointless to ask about God's character if
you don't assume there is a God, at least for the sake of argument. I
have certainly spent enough time on this blog giving reason enough why
one can assume God based upon any number of things. For those tempted
to make comments and demand reasons I tell you now, see my 42 arguments, especially no 7 and no 8. I single out those two becasue they form the basis of the empirical approach. One might also see my essay on phenomenology and Method.
Certainly
we are talking about taking religious experience seriously. The same
reasoning that would allow one to understand God as reality would also
allow one to understand God's character as love. It makes no sens to
take up a challenge or to even issue one about God's goodness then turn
around and say "you can't prove that becuase you can't prove god
exists." Ok so that what sense would it make to argue "god is fictional
but he's really evil?" The realization that leads to faith is the same
realiation that allows us to understand God's love. It's simply an
empirical matter. We experince God's presence, swe sesne God's love. In a
life of 30+
years that has never been disproved. Even in times when I
lost faith and thought God was disproved, even in times when I lost
everything and thought God was evil, he was neither evil, or absent nor unfaithful. (see part 2 here).

excerpt from those last two links:

Looking
back on it things actually were better after we left the house. At the
time, however, we couldn't see that. Then it seemed like the end. We
were scared, we were homeless, we couldn't find an apartment because we
had "financial leper" on our credit. Since 9/11 getting an apartment
in Dallas was next to impossible. When I first moved away form my
parents and went to New Mexico back in 80, no one cared who I was or
what my credit was. I gave them money they gave me an apartment. By
2006, however, in Dallas, it was next to impossible even if your credit
was good. It really seemed like the end. I began saying "I am dead, I
died, they just haven't told the corpse to lay down yet." I also began
to say "God has cursed me." "God loves to crush his own guys, this is
what I get for caring about my parents." You know I was practicing for
the glee club. I was a tower of faith. We did find an apartment, we had a
couple of thousand dollars from the guy who bought the house (because
he was a Christian he said) even though the mortgage company actually
makes them promise not to help the victim, not to give more than the
mortgage price in a short sale. It's set up so the the victim losing the
house can't get anything for his/her hard earned ears of struggle to
buy the house. He bought the furniture and car and then let us keep
them.

God was faithful to me even when I was not
faithful to him. I was calling him a lair and shouting at him and I
said worse than that. I called him a monster and told him he loved to
hurt people. He didn't care, he's heard it all. I didn't shame God into
helping me, he was working to help me anyway, I only held up the process
and made it take longer by not trusting and not looking to seek the
spiritual instead of freaking out because things didn't look good. Easy
to forget, we walk by faith and not by sight. That means its' going to
look grim. That doesn't mean anything you just have to trust God.
Cultivate your spiritual relationship with God. Cultivate our inner
life! It's a life long project, work on it every day.

That
requires a life of faith to understand. The first step is to seek. Then
it will fall into place. It wont fall into place when you renounce God
and make skepticism your watchword. If your principle is to see through
everyging, as C.S. Lewis said, you wind seeing nothing.

Ground breaking research that boosts religious arguments for God to a much stronger level. It makes experience arguments some of the most formidable.Empirical scientific studies demonstrate belief in God is rational, good for you, not the result of emotional instability.
Ready answer for anyone who claims that belief in God is psychologically bad for you.
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